M1 reports increase in first-quarter revenue, profits

Singaporean fixed and mobile operator M1 Limited (M1) has published its unaudited financial results for the three months ended 31 March 2014, reporting a 2.1% year-on-year increase in service revenue to SGD203.9 million (USD162.9 million), attributed to growth in mobile data usage and increased subscriber numbers. The company said that non-voice revenue climbed by 5.6 percentage points y-o-y in the period under review, to account for 45.1% of service revenue in January-March 2014. Net profit increased 4.4% over the same period to SGD42.8 million; free cash flow for the quarter was SGD41.3 million.

Operationally speaking, the carrier closed out March with a total of 2.104 million mobile users, up 2.9% on an annualised basis. It reported that post-paid churn was ‘stable’ at 1.1%. M1 also added a net 5,000 new fibre broadband customers in the quarter for a total of 90,000 at 1 April.

Commenting on the results Ms Karen Kooi, chief executive officer of M1, said: ‘We continually invest in our networks to enhance network performance and customer experience, and will be committing SGD120 million in the current year. Our 4G network is now capable of supporting speeds of up to 150Mbps nationwide. This will be further upgraded to 300Mbps when Long Term Evolution-Advanced [LTE-A) is implemented by the end of this year. In addition, we will be launching high quality voice calls over our 4G network in the coming months.’ The CEO went on to note: ‘The enterprise segment is likely to see an increase in demand by SMEs for high speed connectivity and Infocomm Technology (ICT) solutions, driven by the government’s SGD500 million ICT programme. We will continue to enhance our product and service offerings to deliver solutions that bring value to our customers.’ Based on the current economic outlook, M1 is forecasting moderate growth in net profit for full year 2014.